Hi Dear Folk,
John Le Carre The Biography by Adam Sisman.
This book is 600 pages long. I'm sure most people are familiar with John Le Carre the writer. His real name is David Cornwell. Probably his most well known books are The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, The Perfect Spy and the Constant Gardener.
Back in 1963 he became known worldwide with the publication of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. This was made into a movie staring Richard Burton and Claire Bloom. Most of his earlier novels were based on spies MI5 and MI6 and the Cold War of Iron Curtain years. His more recent novels have touched on a number of issues such as Pharmaceutical Companies in the Constant Gardener, set in Kenya and The Tailor of Panama, a country that only came into existence because of the USA and the Panama Canal.
Cornwell had a sad "hug-less" childhood, in the care of a "totally" hopeless father who was a charming womanizer and a charismatic con man. They would rise and fall from living in mansions and driving round in a Rolls Royce to his father being in prison. A common expression of his father was "I'll see you right son." Much of his childhood and father was put into The Perfect Spy.
To say the least it was a very unconventional childhood. He went to some of the better public schools, but his father always owed money for his tuition and usually the school would land up paying some of his fees. He excelled in languages and totally immersed himself in German literature, language and the culture. An excellent advantage for a cold war spy. He was recruited by MI5 and MI6 during a year that he spent studying in Switzerland as a teenager and later at Oxford where he spied on a number of his fellow students who were thought to have communist leanings. An appointment to a government job they had applied to might never come through and they would never know why.
MI5 was not a very impressive organisation. 'For a while you wondered whether the fools were really pretending to be fools, as some kind of deception,' David wrote later; 'but alas, the reality was the mediocrity. Ex-colonial policemen mingling with failed academics, failed lawyers, failed missionaries and failed debutantes gave our canteen the amorphous quality of an Old School outing on the Orient Express. Everyone seemed to smell of failure. Many of the older men seemed to be living on credit they had accumulated from their wartime records, David noted wryly that 'anyone who was old enough to have fought Hitler was deemed a hero.' Stella Rimington, who would eventually rise to become MI5 first female Director-General, has related how, even at the end of the 1960's 'the ethos had not changed very much from the days when a small group of military officers, all male of course and all close colleagues working in great secrecy pitted their wits against the enemy.'
It was very much an old boys society, many having known each other from their public school days. The country club view not open to Jews and Blacks. Interesting that Stella Rimington was the first to raise doubts about Kim Philby.
Looking back at his career with MI5 more than thirty years afterwards David would write that 'it was witch-hunt time,'
After a while David transferred to F4, the section responsible for agent-running. The 'agent' is confusing, because it has different meanings in British and American parlance. In America, an 'agent' is used to mean an intelligence officer, as in 'FBI agent'; but in Britain, it means an individual who is paid or persuaded by an intelligence officer to provide information about the Communist Party, or any other organisation deemed to be subversive.
David hit back at 'the whole oppressive weight of political correctness, a form of modern McCarthyism in reverse', He insisted on his right, as a non-Jew but as a convinced supporter of the nation state of Israel, to condemn Israeli actions without being branded an anti-Semite.
I like the terminology "modern McCarthyism in reverse."
In 2005 David had suggested that Britain might be sliding towards fascism. 'Mussolini's definition of fascism was that when you can't distinguish corporate powers from governmental power, you are on the way to a fascist state. If you throw in God power and media power, that's where we are now,' he told an interviewer from the Guardian. When asked if he was saying that Britain had become a fascist state, he replied, 'Does is strike you as democratic?'
He has been with many publishing houses over the years, but decided in later life to publish his old classics with Penguin Classics, to keep them out there. All his manuscripts and work have been donated to the Bodleian in Oxford.
His books are always current based on things happening in the world, he is a prolific writer and has had many #1 best sellers. He takes time to travel to political hot spots, seeking out people in the know all this is fodder for his books.
Penguin marked the fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of The Spy who Came in from the Cold in August 2013, with a special edition, featuring a retro cover design, archival images and a new afterword from David.
Yes, we must both keep writing, keep creating, it's the only weapon against death. When I'm writing properly I still feel 23. When I'm not, I can hardly sleep for despair; such an awful life in so many ways, and looks so terribly impressive from the outside. But the inside has been such a ferment of buried anger and lovelessness from childhood that is was sometimes almost uncontainable.
If a few words could sum up his life. maybe the above quote could.
Asked how it felt to be eighty, David replied that is seemed premature:
It was always in the contract, I just didn't know they would deliver so soon. But it's okay, I feel ready to die. I've had an incredibly good life, an exciting one. I've got 13 grandchildren and fantastic wives for my sons. I was the bridge they had to cross to get from my father to life ... I find it very difficult to read my own stuff, but I look at it with satisfaction. So if it were over very soon, I would not feel anything except gratitude. To have had my life and be ungrateful for it would be a sin.
A most interesting biography and well written, with access to David Cornwell's, friends, colleagues, unpublished photos from the family archives as well as lovers and enemies.
Christine
John Le Carre The Biography by Adam Sisman.
This book is 600 pages long. I'm sure most people are familiar with John Le Carre the writer. His real name is David Cornwell. Probably his most well known books are The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, The Perfect Spy and the Constant Gardener.
Back in 1963 he became known worldwide with the publication of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. This was made into a movie staring Richard Burton and Claire Bloom. Most of his earlier novels were based on spies MI5 and MI6 and the Cold War of Iron Curtain years. His more recent novels have touched on a number of issues such as Pharmaceutical Companies in the Constant Gardener, set in Kenya and The Tailor of Panama, a country that only came into existence because of the USA and the Panama Canal.
Cornwell had a sad "hug-less" childhood, in the care of a "totally" hopeless father who was a charming womanizer and a charismatic con man. They would rise and fall from living in mansions and driving round in a Rolls Royce to his father being in prison. A common expression of his father was "I'll see you right son." Much of his childhood and father was put into The Perfect Spy.
To say the least it was a very unconventional childhood. He went to some of the better public schools, but his father always owed money for his tuition and usually the school would land up paying some of his fees. He excelled in languages and totally immersed himself in German literature, language and the culture. An excellent advantage for a cold war spy. He was recruited by MI5 and MI6 during a year that he spent studying in Switzerland as a teenager and later at Oxford where he spied on a number of his fellow students who were thought to have communist leanings. An appointment to a government job they had applied to might never come through and they would never know why.
MI5 was not a very impressive organisation. 'For a while you wondered whether the fools were really pretending to be fools, as some kind of deception,' David wrote later; 'but alas, the reality was the mediocrity. Ex-colonial policemen mingling with failed academics, failed lawyers, failed missionaries and failed debutantes gave our canteen the amorphous quality of an Old School outing on the Orient Express. Everyone seemed to smell of failure. Many of the older men seemed to be living on credit they had accumulated from their wartime records, David noted wryly that 'anyone who was old enough to have fought Hitler was deemed a hero.' Stella Rimington, who would eventually rise to become MI5 first female Director-General, has related how, even at the end of the 1960's 'the ethos had not changed very much from the days when a small group of military officers, all male of course and all close colleagues working in great secrecy pitted their wits against the enemy.'
It was very much an old boys society, many having known each other from their public school days. The country club view not open to Jews and Blacks. Interesting that Stella Rimington was the first to raise doubts about Kim Philby.
Looking back at his career with MI5 more than thirty years afterwards David would write that 'it was witch-hunt time,'
After a while David transferred to F4, the section responsible for agent-running. The 'agent' is confusing, because it has different meanings in British and American parlance. In America, an 'agent' is used to mean an intelligence officer, as in 'FBI agent'; but in Britain, it means an individual who is paid or persuaded by an intelligence officer to provide information about the Communist Party, or any other organisation deemed to be subversive.
David hit back at 'the whole oppressive weight of political correctness, a form of modern McCarthyism in reverse', He insisted on his right, as a non-Jew but as a convinced supporter of the nation state of Israel, to condemn Israeli actions without being branded an anti-Semite.
I like the terminology "modern McCarthyism in reverse."
In 2005 David had suggested that Britain might be sliding towards fascism. 'Mussolini's definition of fascism was that when you can't distinguish corporate powers from governmental power, you are on the way to a fascist state. If you throw in God power and media power, that's where we are now,' he told an interviewer from the Guardian. When asked if he was saying that Britain had become a fascist state, he replied, 'Does is strike you as democratic?'
He has been with many publishing houses over the years, but decided in later life to publish his old classics with Penguin Classics, to keep them out there. All his manuscripts and work have been donated to the Bodleian in Oxford.
His books are always current based on things happening in the world, he is a prolific writer and has had many #1 best sellers. He takes time to travel to political hot spots, seeking out people in the know all this is fodder for his books.
Penguin marked the fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of The Spy who Came in from the Cold in August 2013, with a special edition, featuring a retro cover design, archival images and a new afterword from David.
Yes, we must both keep writing, keep creating, it's the only weapon against death. When I'm writing properly I still feel 23. When I'm not, I can hardly sleep for despair; such an awful life in so many ways, and looks so terribly impressive from the outside. But the inside has been such a ferment of buried anger and lovelessness from childhood that is was sometimes almost uncontainable.
If a few words could sum up his life. maybe the above quote could.
Asked how it felt to be eighty, David replied that is seemed premature:
It was always in the contract, I just didn't know they would deliver so soon. But it's okay, I feel ready to die. I've had an incredibly good life, an exciting one. I've got 13 grandchildren and fantastic wives for my sons. I was the bridge they had to cross to get from my father to life ... I find it very difficult to read my own stuff, but I look at it with satisfaction. So if it were over very soon, I would not feel anything except gratitude. To have had my life and be ungrateful for it would be a sin.
A most interesting biography and well written, with access to David Cornwell's, friends, colleagues, unpublished photos from the family archives as well as lovers and enemies.
Christine
Sounds like a book my husband would enjoy.
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting. One of my favourite authors, Derek Tangye, was good friends with him so I've read a little about him.
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting. What a sad childhood.
ReplyDeleteThis does sound interesting. Had not realized his childhood was so miserable/sad.
ReplyDelete